Trip & Trivia
Antigua can be expensive if you don’t watch where you go just got a hair cut & beard trimmed & cost 100 Quatzales ($12 US) host family madre recommended the shop & silly me didn’t ask price before hand, live & learn!
On the other hand Antigua is never boring, the President of Guatemala was in town this morning & my Spanish teacher thought it was a nice day to move the lesson to a walk in the Parque Central (how’s that for a teacher chickie?) & show me where the panderia was that made the good pan de banano. We wondered why all the police & army presence then when we gor near the municipal offices we noticed the plain clothes body guards realized it was some one extremely important & learned later it was the President. there was enough fire power in the park to start a small revolution!
Met another volunteer today a girl from Vancouver taking a gap year & with the same organization as the others, another nice young lady, there might be hope for the world yet with all these young people from all over the western world finding their way to Antigua & one of it’s 17 Spanish schools.
Canadians who think they are hard done by with our peso in the gutter should put them selves in the shoes of the girl from Iceland who just found a job in one of the travelers pubs The No Se Cafe to help pay for her stay here while she learns Espanol.
Also met a Canadian couple from Calgary, nice people, I am sure there must be some jerks in town but have yet to meet them, the 2 know it all’s don’t count as they were harmless, just showing the world their ignorance.
In a way the indigenous Mayan population of Guatemala & Mexico is treated much the same as we treat our First Nation population, BADLY so it was no surprise when my teacher had no idea how they lived when I did me report of the weekend trip (chickie it really helps when you have spent almost 2 weeks of immersion in the language).
As to the trip we were in Comalapa an hour & a quarter north of Antigua where we visited the museum the composer (don’t have my notes & forget the full name) of the Guatemalan National Anthem which won the competition for the best National Anthem in the world, apparently there was some politics involved so the title was revoked & Guatemala, France & Hungary were awarded the 3 best without any order. While there we viewed the wall along the road side where there was a mural about 1500 feet long on both sides telling the history of the Maya from the beginning to the present, then to an art gallery featuring 4 local artists, great work with vivid colors & sharp contrast, no blending from one to the next.
We next travelled to Chimzat for lunch of a traditional dish featuring of course polo (chicken) y arroz (rice) after which we visited a strawberry farm. Now the word farm is not what we are used to in North America as they consist of only an acre or two which is plenty when most tilling is done with a hoe, apparently some of the more prosperous farmers rent a tractor but that is the exception not the rule. I found the strawberries to be the commercial quality bred for shipping not taste, yech!
We then went to our host families for “cena” & the night which I shall tell next time.
Tags: Travel
busman7
Thanks once again for the update, sounds like a very diverse and interesting weekend. If you have time Dave could you post on here your proposed itinarary with dates for the remainder of your time away from Canada. I’m sure I’m not the only one who would love to see it.
Dave … I absolutely believe that total immersion is the only way to learn! I have heard from many of the senior Spanish classmates who have travelled various places and say that Cuba’s Spanish is bastardized; far from the true form and that places like Honduras, Belize and of course Guatamala are the truest forms.
OK Ken here goes Sadly I will be saying Hasta luego to Guatemala on Monday heading for El Salvador then Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica & panama. No fixed dates or places other than I have a ticket from Panama City to Havana on Dec 28, will just go where the wind blows me.
Jorge (yes I have seen the thread on TA by the moron bingocaller) has arranged for my dental work, a cassa, Spanish lessons & is personally going to give me a tour of the museum of the revolution, will be at Hotel National in Havana Dec 28-Jan 2 then in an apartment in a casa. Feb & Mar will be travelling around Cuba via Visaul bus to Santiago then back to Havana by train & hope I have better luck with the train than Manfredz had last year. April is a long ways away so have no idea, could end up any where LOL
Jan see what your Spanish teacher comes up with a translation for this “carrera de charolas”
Dave, I didn’t see this until now so didn’t ask her but carrera is race and charolas are trays. So it would be like a “race of trays” lol!
Might just be an Antigua thing but the annual waiter race is called “The marathon of the trays”
To answer your question on the quality of Spanish taught here they claim it’s the best in Central America but I have no way to judge but the family I’m staying with has been boarding students from my escula for 30 yrs & have had students from most countries in the world so must not be bad. Everyone claims Cuban Spanish to be kind of bastredized & they speak way too fast, I will find out in Enero.